Whether you’re writing articles for you own website or blog or someone has hired you to write for theirs, an understanding of search engine optimization (SEO) can greatly increase traffic and hits. Obviously, you want as many people as possible to read what you write, and SEO article writing helps generate page views. SEO does exactly what it says – it optimizes your work for search engines. Every search engine has a complicated metrics system that helps it rank a website’s relevance to specific keyword searches. When you type a keyword or combination of keywords in a search engine like Google or Yahoo, the search engine will do its best to give you exactly what you’re looking for. When you’re writing your articles, you want to keep SEO in mind. Good SEO writing will raise your pages’ to higher levels in the search engine rankings, bringing your link to the top of the search results list, and making it more likely that searchers will click on your page. Here is a quick guide to help you understand SEO as it relates to writing articles.
Selecting Keywords
With SEO, you can help the search engines determine that your article should be among the top results they give by understanding the keywords people use while searching. Look up keywords with Google Adwords or another analysis or generator tool. Obviously, the most-frequently searched words are the ones that make the best keywords, because they will generate the most hits.
Article Features
Stick to one topic per article. The best SEO articles should be about 500-650 words and up, but you can write a good SEO article with just 250-300 words, too. A good formula to try is four paragraphs of 100-150 words each, and put your keywords most importantly in the first and last paragraphs, but also scattered throughout the middle. You’ll also need to come up with a title, and this step is very important. Your title will often appear in the URL that links to your article, so make sure it also contains your keywords. Don’t forget that the title is what most people will notice, so keep it simple and relevant to the topic, to entice those clicks!
Keyword Density
It is important to pay attention to the keyword density of your article. To figure out your article’s keyword density, divide the number of times your keyword appears by the total number of words in your article, and multiply that result by 100. The answer will be your keyword density, in a percentage. For the best SEO articles, you want to shoot for a keyword density of 2-3%. For example, in a 300-word article, your keyword will appear about nine times.
Sourcing
The search engine’s goal is to provide the searcher with the most helpful and high quality articles for their keywords. It is a good idea to include your source information with your SEO article. The search engines rank pages with linked sources higher because the article looks well-researched and contains source information that may add value for the reader. Be sure to use valid and valuable sources.
Content
The most important aspect of SEO article writing is to create good content. After all, the point is that you want your article recognized on its merits, not that you managed to trick a search engine by pandering to all its ranking criteria. Make sure your article is well written and genuinely helpful to someone who may read it. Poorly written content is not desirable and often indicates a content farm. Consider using a grammar checker such as Grammarly, and always spell-check your work, but do not neglect the need for good human editing with a good grasp of the topic at hand.
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